Dr.Hab., associate professor S.-A.M. Aslakhanov
Chechen State Pedagogical Institute. Grozny, Russia

Keywords: model, educational technology, system, physical education, ethnic physical culture, ethno-pedagogics, ethnophor

Introduction

The present need for good scientific substantiations and design ideas for a new model of the physical education technology based on fundamental values of ethnic pedagogics may be explained by the fact that the former values and priorities of the young people’s physical education system have been largely destroyed whilst the existing system and its ideas are largely non-accepted by most of the young people. Moreover, there are good reasons to state that the modern ethnic physical education system has lost most of the key ethnic-pedagogical values.

Giving credit to the important contributions by many researchers to the efforts to solve problems related to the folk-and-national traditions being duly embodied in the ethnic physical education systems, we should note that the problem of good scientific substantiations and design ideas for a new education concept as a pivotal element of the initiatives to shape up modern personality-shaping physical culture system still waits for detailed studies and solutions [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11].

Objective of the study was to offer scientific substantiations and design idea for a new model of ethnic physical education technology based on the fundamental values of ethnic pedagogics and modern physical education system values – taking traditions of the Northern Caucasus nations for the case study.

Methodology and structure of the study

Basic theoretical and experimental research works in the subject area of the present study were performed in the period of 1990-2013 under the relevant formal Scientific Research Mission (coded as “Ethnophors”) at Chechen State Pedagogical Institute (in Grozny city, Russia).

For the purposes of the study, we performed an opinion poll to survey attitudes of different population groups to the national physical education traditions and practices and assess potential roles of the latter in the modern education system, with the following groups being polled:

– Old-time residents in villages, narrators of folk tales and local experts in ethnic sport games and physical practices;

– University students of the relevant physical culture and sport departments and physical educators and instructors; and

– Some groups of pupils and their families.

We handed questionnaires to the students and physical culture educators after they had tested a few national physical education practices and tools in addition to the basic state physical education curriculum in practical sessions and school lessons of physical education in the period of formal pedagogical practice at the general education schools of the Chechen Republic.

Reference groups under the study were trained in compliance with the regular standard methodology of the integrated school curriculum. Study groups composed of the 1-4 graders were trained under the experimental physical education curriculum which content was expanded to give place to active sport games, special physical practices, movement sequences of folk dances of different Russian and foreign nations etc. The 5^th grade school curriculum was expanded to include key elements of the national wrestling traditions. Physical education lessons in the reference and experimental classes were delivered by certified staff specialists of physical education. We used a course of methodology-focused sessions with an emphasis on constructive consulting and recommendations to update the staff school physical educators on the experimental methods and practices and give them practical support in the experimental curriculum being implemented in the school education process. To assess the academic progress of the pupils in the motor skills mastering, knowledge acquisition and physical qualities development domains, we applied a set of standard tests as provided by the regular physical education curriculum for the I–XI grades of general education schools.

Study results and discussion

In the course of the study we determined a set of key factors to assess the new curriculum effectiveness in the values- and priorities-centred personality-shaping procedure under the physical education process based on the key values of ethnic pedagogics.

The study demonstrated that good knowledge of the key values of ethnic physical education traditions and conscientious adoption of the relevant spiritual values and healthy living standards are the key factors for the values- and priorities-centred personality-shaping process being successful.

Following the logic of the study, we then specified the key educational values of the folk-tradition-based physical education systems and explored mechanisms of their influence on the education process content and priorities with due consideration for the general and specific regularities critical for the education system improvement process.

The general regularities may be listed as follows:

– Ethnic physical education process will be designed based on requirements of the future labour activity and military service that will be viewed as a framework for the multisided personality shaping process;

– Ethnic physical education process will be designed on a consistent and systemic basis to ensure high physical education levels of the ethnic people;

– It is the ethnic physical education process effectiveness that determines how fit the ethnic trainees are for the upcoming military service and productive labour activity; and

– The ethnic physical education process effectiveness is dependent on the quality of science-based education planning system and quality of the psychological and pedagogical backgrounds of the staff educators of the relevant educational establishments.

The specific regularities include the following:

– Effectiveness of the ethnic physical education process centred on the key values of the subject ethnos is dependent on how active and determined the trainees are, the determination being secured by due ethnic physical cultural practices and tools being prudently applied in the process;

– The ethnic physical education process content, methods and structure are dependent on the modern general physical education curriculum on the one hand and on the real implementation opportunities for and practical knowledge of the applicable folk traditions and customs on the other hand;

– The ethnic physical education process effectiveness is dependent on the local educational environment and actual conditions for the education process; and

– The ethnic physical education process success is dependent on how effective the physical education process management system is.

Findings of the present study provided us with the means to specify the key spiritual and social values for the education process and the top priority values for the health protection and improvement within the frame of base healthy living standards.

Spiritual values mean the standards designed to facilitate high-quality spiritual development of young people with the highest priority being given to justice, freedom, harmony, kindness, integrity and other eternal values; to form deep respect to elderly people and to the national traditions and customs; to shape up good spiritual mindsets and behavioural models traditional for the local ethnic communities; and to foster positive relationship, communication, friendship and team spirit in the ethnic people.

Social values are designed to encourage the young people getting duly prepared for productive labour career and military service; to integrate fundamental science-based knowledge of the human activity and behaviour in the micro- and macro-social environments; to correctly orient young people and help them form a right world outlook and individual ideologies; to help them adequately assess their individual agendas, needs and resources in the context of their true vocation and the relevant professional careers in future; to assist them in good understanding of the values and mission of every profession of interest for them; and to initiate and support the practical efforts of the ethnic people to implement their individual agendas in practice.

Health protection and improvement values of children and young people will be designed to properly build up the personal health concepts of the trainees; to facilitate the personal self-improvement in the physical health domain; to help identify a human being on the whole and oneself in particular as a bio-social creature; to show the key role of health in any vocational activity; and to help the trainee model oneself as a harmonically developed personality and design a practical implementation plan for this model.

It is a matter of common knowledge today that mechanisms of influence of the key values of the ethnic pedagogics and physical culture on content and general vector of practical physical education process in application to the modern ethnic communities – are dependent on how well designed and coordinated the key assumptions, education methods and institutional components of the process are to ensure the key values of the ethnic physical education being implemented on an integrated basis.

The above-mentioned key mechanisms of influence are the following: good cooperation of family, school education staff and local community in the process; favourable micro-environments in the school, family and community; due information, education and motivation mechanisms to help shape up the right knowledge, mindsets and incentives; ensuring the values being increasingly supported by the communities and exemplified in the relevant behavioural models; ensuring the key objectives, content and practices of the physical education process being controllable by the communities; and applying the most effective physical education methods, practices and forms to different ethnic groups to help them attain the general national objectives in the physical cultural process.

In further process of the study, we specified the main performance principles of the model ethnic physical education system based on integrated application of the key ethnic-pedagogical values and the existing general physical culture system values.

The performance principles of the model ethnic physical education system based on the key ethnic-pedagogical values are the following: optimal form, integration, practicability and prioritization of the professional goals of the system; updatability of the education system content; culture- and nature-harmonized design of the system; and cooperation principles.

At the next stage of the study, we specified the following key improvement avenues for the model ethnic physical education system based on the key ethnic-pedagogical values and modern physical culture system values: initiatives to speed up adaptation of the ethnic physical education system to the varying social-and-economic conditions in the country; efforts to establish in the national education system of Russian Federation due institutional, methodological and content-formation fundamentals to secure high-quality improvements in the physical education process; actions to implement, on a multisided basis, a brand new education staff training and skills-improvement system to ensure high quality of their psychological and pedagogical knowledge and skills; and initiatives to improve the quality of the physical education process to ensure high physical fitness standards for the young people getting ready for the upcoming military service and productive labour career.

In the further process of the study, it was important for us to substantiate the psychological and pedagogical conditions required to facilitate the process of the key ethnic-pedagogics values and physical-culture values being accepted by the trainees with due consideration for the risks that may arise in the education process.

Key conditions for the ethnic-pedagogics values and physical-culture values being accepted by the trainees are the following: the ethnic-pedagogics concepts, methods and practices will be implemented in the physical education process; the process curriculum will provide methodological means to spell out semantics of the relevant folk traditions and customs of the ethnic community; folk practices, games, dances and national wrestling traditions will be embodied in the physical education process; due motivation system will be formed to step up the interest of trainees to the customs and traditions of their ancestors; an efficient process control and management system needs to be put in place to rate success of the personality-shaping process; education tasks will be offered to encourage and foster demand for the ethnic values in the trainees in the physical education process; an integrated competency building and improvement system in application to the staff educators will be established to ensure the highest professional standards being applied to the ethnic-pedagogics-values-based physical education practices, methods and forms in the process; and the relevant events need to be organized to encourage competitive spirit being fostered in the trainees in the ethnic-pedagogics-values-based physical education process.

Furthermore, the study specified the risks in the process of the key ethnic-pedagogics values being promoted in the physical education systems of the Northern Caucasus people, including: insufficient implementation of the ethnic-pedagogics-values-based physical education practices, methods and forms in the process; and inadequate methodological backgrounds of the staff educators that need to implement these physical education practices, methods and forms.

At the final stage of the study, we developed a model education technology for the ethnic physical education system based on the integrated key ethnic-pedagogics values and the modern physical education system values.

Missions of the physical education system may be performed only when the education process is conscientiously designed to help accept and apply panhuman and ethnic cultural values for the benefit of personality-shaping process. It is the creative cooperation, empathy and the active behavioural model analysis and correction that will form a methodological basis for formation of a values-centred consciousness. It should be noted in this context that it is the health protection and improvement activity that will be viewed as a foothold for the values-centred agenda of young people since health is always critical for individual success in any area of human activity. These are the basic ideas that we put in foundation for the model education technology of the ethnic-pedagogics-values-based physical culture.

It is a matter of common knowledge that any education system performance may be effective if it is prudently composed of harmonized content, institutional and structural components and activity component and designed with due consideration for the relevant general and specific performance regularities of the physical education system, with the following key performance factors: the physical fitness levels of the trainees will be persistently improved; the system will ensure the physical development rates and physical working capacity indices being on the rise; the academic performance will be improved in the process; the system will offer basic conditions for active progress of the physical education system with due application of ethnic methods and ethnic physical culture values; and the system will provide for higher emotionality of the process; will cut down the curriculum mastering period; and will ensure that the acquired knowledge and skills are more stable with time.

Our analysis of the education plans and curricula helped specify the information background of the ethnic physical culture with its theoretical, methodological and practical components. This analysis gave us the means to develop frame model structure for the ethnic-pedagogics-based physical education process, the structure being designed as a harmonized combination of the methodological, diagnostics, management, information-technology, communication and result-assessment components, as follows.

Methodological component will be designed to spell out the key research concepts to form the relevant ethnic-culture competences, and the education conditions and principles for the personality-shaping physical education process based on the key values of ethnic pedagogics.

Diagnostics component will assess the starting level of competency in the ethnic-pedagogics-based physical education, physical development and physical fitness domains and the development rates of the relevant spiritual, social and health improvement values adopted by the trainees.

Management component will include different physical education forms of performance planning, with accounting and management supervision of the background conditions including the legislative, programmatic, regulatory, research, methodological, logistical and staffing prerequisites for implementation of the physical education curriculum as required by its mission and objectives.

Information-technology component will include the federal ethnological information proper subcomponent and the invariant ethnic-pedagogics-centred component of the physical education system on the one hand; and the technological subcomponent on the other hand, including the methods and tools to form the ethnic-culture competences, process algorithms for the ethnic-culture competence formation and the ethnic-pedagogics-centred forms of the education and upbringing process. The relevant control methods will include: logical analysis of the subject matter based on the general system design theory; modelling; supervision; opinion polling; educational experiment; practical experience analyzing and summarizing with an emphasis on the psychological and pedagogical aspects of the ethnic physical education process; questioning and testing activity.

Communication component will be designed to regulate interactions of the ethnic education process actors on the principles of equality, cooperation, respect, mutual support and assistance.

Result-assessment/ final diagnostics component will be designed to rate success of the education efforts to help: shape up the desired personality having the required competences in physical culture, sport and ethnic pedagogics of the physical education process; master the critically important skills and practices; develop the relevant physical qualities; adopt the fundamental panhuman and ethnic cultural values; and get prepared for success in the subject field of activity.

Result-assessment educational experiments will be designed to rate success of the national physical education tools applied to make the education process more emotional; cut down the physical education curriculum mastering period; form and make stable the desired personal qualities, physical development and fitness levels as attained by the relevant educational methods.

Conclusions

1. The study demonstrates that the subject pedagogical concept of ethnic physical education system – with the model ethnic-pedagogics-driven personality-shaping physical education system based on the key ethnic pedagogics values and modern physical culture values offered as its pivotal element – is quite effective and, hence, new theoretical and methodological concepts for the system performance need to be formed.
2. The ethnic-pedagogics-driven ethnic physical education technology may be implemented based on the model designed as a harmonized combination of the methodological, diagnostic, management, information-technology (including the information subcomponent with education-, training- and ethnic-culture-competence-specific information; and technological subcomponent with the relevant technical methods and tools to form the ethnic-cultural competences, process algorithms for the ethnic-cultural competence formation and the ethnic-pedagogics-driven forms of the education and upbringing process), communication and result-assessment components.
3. Effectiveness of the proposed model of the ethnic-pedagogics-driven ethnic physical education technology was verified by the fact that of the 100 pupils subject to the group variation analysis under the educational experiment only 9 failed to reach the difference-reliability level (p> 0.05). Subject to the experiment were 6 boys’ groups (including 5 reference groups and 1 study group) and 3 girls’ groups (including 2 reference groups and 1 study group). The study group trainees showed reliably higher results as verified by the relevant performance criteria as measured by the physical fitness rating tests focused on specific physical qualities including strength-, speed-, strength-and-speed- and endurance-rating tests.

4. The ethnic-pedagogics-driven ethnic physical education technology based on the key ethnic-pedagogics values and modern physical culture values was demonstrated to be most effective under the following conditions: due informational and elucidative support of the ethnic physical education process based on the historically proven centuries-old values of ethnic pedagogics; mass events designed to give basic physical culture knowledge to families and foster their responsibility for the physical, spiritual and ethical health of the new generation.

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Corresponding author: m.a.08@mail.ru

Abstract

The work is devoted to the basic values of ethnopedagogics of physical education, mechanisms of their influence on the vector and content of component elements of the pedagogical technology of formation of personal physical culture on the basis of general and private didactic rules.

The purpose of the work was to provide scientific justification and develop a model of pedagogical technology of ethnic physical education, based an the value potential of ethnopedagogics and the modern system of physical culture.

The set tasks were solved and the hypothesis was tested using adequate research methods including:

­ theoretical and general scientific: logical and analytical, general theory of building systems, modeling;

­ empirical: survey, observation, study and synthesis of psycho­pedagogical experience in the system of ethnic physical education, educational experiment, questionnaire and testing of pupils.

According to the findings of the educational experiment, the developed model of the ethnic physical education technology, based on the value potential of ethnopedagogics and the modern system of physical culture more effectively facilitates the formation of the pupils' personal physical culture.